BizRate Founder to Be Arraigned on Pair of Drunk Driving Charges
The chairman of BizRate.com will be arraigned March 2 on felony drunk-driving charges stemming from an accident last December in which three people were injured, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Farhad Mohit, 31, who co-founded the Marina del Rey company four years ago, has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of driving under the influence. Each count carries a maximum sentence of three years in state prison.
At a four-hour preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Municipal Court on Tuesday, Judge Michael E. Pastor expressed doubt about the evidence against Mohit, who is also chief strategic officer of BizRate.
“I have very, very serious concerns about the sufficiency of the evidence in this case,” he said. But Pastor said enough evidence was presented at the hearing for the case to advance to a formal trial.
Mohit has been free on $50,000 bond.
According to testimony, Mohit was driving a 1998 Range Rover westbound on Wilshire Boulevard in the vicinity of the La Brea Tar Pits last Dec. 5, when the vehicle jumped the center divider and crashed into a palm tree. The accident occurred at 1:50 a.m., shortly after Mohit and his friends left the Garden of Eden, a Hollywood club.
Two passengers suffered minor injuries. A third, Amir R. Kashani, who was seated in the rear without a seat belt, testified that he broke a vertebra and that his injuries required four operations. He wore a neck brace during his testimony.
The accident took place seven days before BizRate announced that it had hired Chuck Davis, an e-commerce executive from the Walt Disney Co., as CEO, replacing Mohit. Mohit had been BizRate’s CEO since its inception.
BizRate is in the process of raising $50 million in venture funding and plans an initial public offering later this year.
Venture capitalist Jonathan Funk, an investor in BizRate, would not comment Tuesday on when the company initiated conversations with Davis. He said in a telephone interview that the charges pending against Mohit “were not part of the process.”
Davis, also reached by phone, declined to discuss his negotiations with BizRate.
He said he joined the company because he shared Mohit’s “strategic vision.” Asked if he knew about Mohit’s arrest when he was hired, Davis said: “Yeah, he had an accident.”
In previous interviews, Funk, Mohit and other investors in BizRate said Davis was hired because Mohit lacked the management skills to run a fast-growing company with 130 employees. BizRate is an online shopping service that also conducts e-commerce research for Internet retailers and consulting firms.
LAPD Officer Manuel Lujan testified Tuesday that he observed Mohit drive erratically along Wilshire Boulevard before the crash. He said Mohit weaved around or passed four cars, and crashed as he changed lanes. In an alcohol-breath test conducted two hours after the accident, the officer testified, Mohit had a 0.07 blood-alcohol level.
People are legally under the influence when they have blood-alcohol levels above 0.08. But a motorist can be considered legally drunk with a blood-alcohol level as low as .05 if he is driving erratically.
Mohit’s attorney, Richard A. Hutton, challenged Lujan’s testimony, estimating that Mohit would have had eight seconds to change lanes at least twice and pass the cars. Under Hutton’s questioning, prosecution witness Kevin Holloman, an LAPD chemist, said it was possible that Mohit’s blood-alcohol level was below .05 at the time of the accident.
Hutton, in an interview, said Mohit does not deny he was drinking, but maintains that he was not intoxicated at the time of the accident. Lujan testified that on the night of the accident, Mohit told him he had one beer and one tequila shot.
Last Thursday, Municipal Court Judge William Ryan issued a protective order preventing contact between Mohit and two accident victims, Kashani, 22, and his girlfriend, Malak Malekeh. Malekeh, who was not wearing a seat belt in the accident, testified her kidneys were bruised. Details of the protective order weren’t immediately available.
